


Falling

by schuylers



Series: Uneven Odds Poe AU [2]
Category: Edgar Allan Poe's Murder Mystery Dinner Party (Web Series)
Genre: Also Sort of Historically Accurate, F/M, I did so much H.G research for this, sort of fluffy, uneven odds poe au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 10:05:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9118873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schuylers/pseuds/schuylers
Summary: H.G would never have fallen in love if he didn't fall out of that tree.





	

Herbert was the youngest in his family. He had two older brothers who loved nothing more than to boss their little brother around.

So you could imagine his delight when, at five years old, he joined the local school and discovered he was the oldest in the class.

The oldest in the youngest class, but the oldest all the same.

Nobody paid attention to who the eldest was when it came to schoolyard hierarchy, as the undisputed king of break-time was Wilbur Davis, a strapping boy of five and a half (as he would so often remind Herbert when he claimed he was six and therefore older than him - the poor boy never quite understood mathematics). Wilbur loved to conduct boxing matches behind the lavatories, and he would often choose Herbert as ‘a warm-up round’ before fighting with one of the stronger boys.

Herbert hated it, but he was most mortified when there were older children, some of them eleven whole years old - watching him. There was one particularly nasty incident in which his head was slammed against the house that served as their dame school, and Herbert caught sight of his brother, Fred, who was ten, and much stronger than Wilbur, in the cheering crowd that had gathered around the scrap. That was in the second year of Herbert’s early education, he was seven years old.

The evening of that fight, Herbert’s mother noticed the poorly concealed gash on the back of his head, and asked about it over their evening meal.

“Bertie,” She said. “What’s wrong with your head?”

“Oh, that?” Herbert touched the back of his head tentatively and winced. “I suppose I tripped on the way home.”

He saw his oldest brother, Frank, roll his eyes at Herbert’s language and grammar. He was always disapproving of Herbert and his ‘posh and proper’ vocabulary. Herbert couldn’t see what the problem was.

“You suppose?”

Fred was silent at the table, he had seen the whole fight scene play out - but knew better than to tell tales on Wilbur Davis. His father was on the three-person board of governors for the school (the other two governors were Mrs Knott, the headmistress, and her husband) and could have Herbert’s whole family terminated from the school, and shunned throughout the whole town as easy as Herbert could calculate sums in his head.

(And he was very good at that.)

So Fred kept quiet, as did Herbert. And when Frank heard of his brother’s regular beatings from an ‘unknown source’ (It was his friend’s younger brother) he made no attempt to stop them - his father would likely hate all three brothers if they were rejected by the community. His cricket career was rather unstable already, and he didn’t need a public shaming scandal demoting him back to his antiques store.

So Herbert endured another year of torment, until his eighth birthday when he climbed a tree in a meadow that Fred had discovered the day before. According to his brother, the climbing of the tree was Herbert’s ‘manly initiation’ and they would watch the world pass by and look for pretty girls.

Herbert was much more interested in the ‘watch the world pass by’ than the prospect of pretty girls, he imagined calculating the height and width of the tree to figure out how many he could grow for himself in his own tiny garden.

Once Herbert had hauled himself onto the highest bough with Fred, he realised that he did not like heights one bit. It all suddenly seemed extremely dizzying and Herbert found himself growing nauseous.

“You’ll be fine, Bertie.” Fred laughed, swinging his legs. “Look down there, you can see Mrs Knott!”

“Where?” Herbert leant forward a little, keeping his eight year old hands on the bough to steady himself, but unable to hide his panic at his teacher seeing him climbing up a tree that was not his.

“I’m joking,” Fred grabbed Bertie by his collar and pulled him back into the leaves. “Be careful, you're the one who's scared of falling here.”

“It’s quite possible, you know!” Herbert said, making the terrifying mistake of looking down. “This might have been a bad idea.”

“Don’t be stupid, Herbert.” Fred sneered, giving his brother a shove.

Herbert yelped as he slipped, unprepared for his brother’s push, and landed with a thud. Fred had no idea how a boy of such slender build could have made such a tremendous noise upon falling.

“Bertie? Bertie? Herbert?!”

. . .

 

“So, what you’re saying is, if you were never beaten up all the time, we would never have met?” Lenore put the paper that she had been reading off and peered at H.G, who was watching her read it intently.

“Technically, yes. It was what made me so conscious of myself and getting hurt, it’s why I asked Fred to get out of the tree with me.”

“And if he hadn’t have pushed you, you wouldn’t have broken your leg and got into writing? So you wouldn’t have come here and met me?”

“That’s right,” H.G smiled.

Lenore studied the paper for a few more moments before giggling.

“What is it?”

“Your family called you Bertie! That’s totes adorable.”

“Well… I suppose it was just a nickname…”

“So your brother really did push you out of a tree?” Lenore grinned.

“Yes, he’s since apologised, of course but-”

“Wow, does everyone I date have a crazy brother?”

“Well, I wouldn’t call him crazy bu- Wait, are we dating?” H.G froze in his seat, a look of intense confusion frozen onto his face.

Lenore could barely stop herself from rolling her eyes and laughing at him.

“Yes, H.G, Bertie. We’re dating.”

She’d never seen someone’s face light up as quickly and as brightly as she did that day.

**Author's Note:**

> H.G's parents called him Bertie for short, and he also went to a dame school ran by a woman named Mrs Knott until he was eight years old so yay for historical accuracy!


End file.
